Defend Libya – Defeat
U.S./U.N./NATO War!Imperialist Marauders
in the Quicksands
of North Africa“Antiwar”
Social-Democrats Back
Pro-Imperialist Rebels,Paving
the Way for BombingThe United
States and its NATO allies have
embarked on a war of imperialist
domination against Libya – yet despite
their overwhelming firepower, they
could soon be caught in the shifting
sands of North Africa. The initial
pretext was to protect civilian lives,
but that cover story was soon blown.
The purpose of the war is to topple
(and possibly murder) Libyan leader
Muammar al-Qaddafi and nail down
imperialist control of this
strategically placed, oil-rich North
African and Mediterranean country – or
failing that, to dismember it. From
the beginning the uprising in Libya,
although it fed on the frustrations of
youth and working people with the
authoritarian Qaddafi government, was
in fact led by pro-imperialist forces.
The prominent role of Islamists, many
of them former members of the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group, is perfectly
evident. The monarchists and civilian
and military leaders with CIA ties of
long standing, play a leading role. So
long as it was a civil war between
them and the Qaddafi regime,
Trotskyists took no sides. But since
the French/British/U.S. began military
operations under the cover of the
United Nations and now formally run by
NATO, the Libyan insurgents are
effectively agents of imperialist
domination who must be defeated.
Imperialist
Marauders in the Quicksands of
North Africa(8
April 2011)

Greek Revolt
Against Bankers’ DiktatUpheaval in
Europe Over Capitalist AusterityThe
Only Solution: Europe-Wide
Socialist Revolution!
After a series of workers
struggles in 2010 in Greece,
France and elsewhere, and the
revolts in North Africa earlier
this year, a new wave of mass
struggle has broken out in Europe
in response to the drive by the
capitalist rulers to saddle the
workers with the costs of the
global economic crisis. On June 5,
100,000 gathered in Syntagma
Square, followed by several days
of rolling strikes in state-owned
companies, a one-day general
strike on June 15, and a two-day
general strike – the first since
the overthrow of the military
junta in 1974 – on June 28-29 as
parliament voted the
austerity/privatization package.
But the PASOK government succeeded
in ramming its bill through
parliament. Despite hundreds of
thousands in the streets and
thousands camped out in central
squares, capital is winning round
two of its offensive against
labor. With the parliamentary
“left” implementing the
capitalists’ program, the
“extra-parliamentary” left calls
for limp trade-union tactics (more
marches and symbolic “general
strikes”) that are doomed to
failure, while default and exit
from the euro would hit workers
with runaway inflation and even
more massive unemployment. The
only real answer to the capitalist
crisis is Europe-wide socialist
revolution.Upheaval
in Europe Over Capitalist
Austerity
(12 July 2011)

Portugal,
Spain: Unemployed Youth Take the
PlazasRebellion of the
OutragedNot Empty “Real
Democracy,” But Fight for Workers
Power!
For the last two months, across
southern Europe hundreds of
thousands of people have taken to
the streets to denounce economic
policies which have produced
misery on a scale not seen since
the last Great Depression in the
1930s. Rather than limiting
themselves to the usual mass
marches, from Portugal and Spain
in the west to Greece in the east,
tens of thousands, mainly youth,
have occupied city centers for
weeks in an upheaval that has
taken the name of los indignados,
“the outraged.” What particularly
sparked their rage is that in all
three countries, the ruinous
policies have been imposed by
governments calling themselves
“socialist,” who were elected
because they claimed to defend the
population against the plutocrats.
The initiators of the Spanish
protests have seized on this sense
of betrayal to pose the issue as
one of “democracy,” saying that
the rules must be wrong in a
system where no matter what the
people vote for, governments obey
the dictates of the banks. With
such bourgeois electoral demands
and populist appeals, the “movement” for “Real Democracy Now” has
attracted some unsavoury
rightists. But although many
protesters say today they are not
“against the system,” in the
course of the struggle some will
discover that the root of the
problem is capitalism. Rebellion
of the Outraged
(12 July 2011)

Barack Obama’s 2012
Reelection Campaign Has BegunU.S./NATO Murder, Inc.On
May
Day
weekend,
the
United
States
and
its
allies in the North
Atlantic Treaty
Organization went on a
killing spree in North
Africa and South Asia. On
April 30, NATO warplanes
bombed a residential
compound in Tripoli where
Muammar Qaddafi was
present in a blatant but
unsuccessful attempt to
murder the Libyan leader.
The next day, U.S.
commandos assaulted a
residence in a suburb of
the Pakistani capital and
proceeded to execute Osama
bin Laden. The U.S. and
its NATO imperialist
allies are in the
assassination business big
time. The last thing the
U.S. wanted is to have
Osama bin Laden alive in
its possession, and it
sure didn’t want him in
front of a court where he
could tell all about how
he and the CIA and the
Pakistani ISI worked
hand-in-glove in their
covert war against the
Soviet “infidels” in
Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Bin Laden is held
responsible for the deaths
of some 2,600 civilians in
the 11 September 2001
attack on NYC’s World
Trade Center, but the U.S.
has wantonly slaughtered
far, far more innocent
civilians in nearly a
decade of war since then.
The “war on terror” is in
reality a war to terrorize
the world into submission
to the dictates of U.S.
imperialism, and it’s part of the capitalist war
being waged against poor, oppressed
and working people here. U.S./NATO
Murder, Inc.(11 May
2011)

Break from the
Democrats and All Capitalist
Parties!Unchain Labor’s
Power – Build a
Revolutionary Workers Party!What It Will Take
to Defeat the War on
Public Workers UnionsAgainst
Mass Layoffs: Labor and
Students, Shut NYC Down!Across
the United
States and
around the
world, labor is
under frontal
attack by
capital. In the
worst economic
crisis since the
last depression,
the bankers and
capitalists who
set it off are
trying to make
their victims
pay. Wisconsin
teachers and
most government
workers have had
their right to
collective
bargaining
canceled. This
marks a decisive
moment for
unions across
the country,
equivalent to
Ronald Reagan’s
destruction of
the PATCO air
controllers
union in 1981.
And it is not
just coming from
the far right:
in New York,
liberal
Democratic
governor Andrew
Cuomo is
spearheading
attacks on
public sector
unions. On May
12, a march on
Wall Street was
called by NYC
labor, but while
protesting
threatened
teacher layoffs
and budget cuts,
its political
message was to
support the
DemocraticParty.
The labor
misleaders back
the capitalist
system while the
entire
capitalist class
is waging war on
labor. In
Wisconsin, the
union tops
squelched
momentum for a
general strike.
It is necessary
to break with
the Democrats
and oust the
bureaucrats, to
forge a
class-struggle
workers party.
In the face of
mass layoffs,
labor and
students should
shut NYC down
with a citywide
strike, and
shred the
no-strike Taylor
Law. What
It Will Take to Defeat the War on
Public Workers Unions(12 May
2011)

Defeat
Governor’s Legislative Coup
d’État

Wisconsin:
For
a
General
Strike
Now!

Break with the
Democrats, Republicans and All
Capitalist Parties!Build a
Class-Struggle Workers Party!

A law
challenging the very existence of
unions of government workers has just
been rammed through the legislature in
Wisconsin. In addition, wages have
been slashed by up to 10 percent to
make up for cuts to health insurance
and pensions. The labor movement and
workers nationwide and internationally
are vividly aware of the stakes. There
has been a lot of talk in the last
three weeks about a general strike.
The Wisconsin South Central Labor
Federation even voted to authorize
one. But now that the moment of truth
has arrived, the union bureaucrats
have gotten cold feet. They are doing
everything to prevent
strike action and instead to divert
anger at this vicious law into a drive
to recall Republican senators, to be replaced
by Democrats, whose “alternative”
budget bill would also have
drastically slashed wages and
benefits. There should
be no delay: this is the hour for
powerful labor action. A general
strike is needed to shut down
Wisconsin now!Wisconsin:
For a General Strike Now!(13
March 2011)

Republicans,
Democrats Are the Parties of CapitalWe
Need a Class-Struggle Workers Party!Wisconsin:
Mobilize Workers’ Powerto Defeat
Union-Busting Bill!On February 17,
thousands of protesting workers and students
occupied the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison
while tens of thousands surrounded the building
for the third day in a row. They were seeking to
block the vicious “budget repair” bill being
rammed through the state legislature by Governor
Scott Walker, which would eliminate the right to
collective bargaining for almost all public
employees. Similar measures are in
the works in Ohio and elsewhere.
The assault on labor is
not just some right-wing Tea Party affair – it
is a bipartisan capitalist attack.But
it’s
being met by the most massive labor mobilization
in the United States in years. What’s
happening in Wisconsin shows
that
the
working
class
is
mad
as
hell
and
ready
to
fight.
It
will take nothing less than a statewide general
strike to defeat labor hater Walker, yet union
leaders block militant action as they chain
workers to the Democrats. We have the power to
stop Walker in his tracks. To mobilize that
power it’s necessary to break with the parties
and politicians of capital and build a workers
party that can wage this class struggle through
to victory. Wisconsin:
Mobilize Workers’ Power to Defeat
Union-Busting Bill!(18 February
2011)

You
Can’t Fight the Union-Busters Without Fighting
CapitalismLessons of Chicago CORECTU “Reformers”
Bow to Democrats, Accept Layoffs –
Build a Class-Struggle Opposition!
On July 30, a national “Save Our Schools
March” was held in Washington, called by a
host of liberal education luminaries and
both national teachers unions. As the unions
(AFT and NEA) go along with the corporate
education “reform”
program, at most seeking to limit the
damage, a number of dissident groups have
sprung up. The model is the Community of
Rank and File Educators (CORE) in Chicago,
which ousted the notoriously corrupt
incumbent union tops in June 2010. Yet once
in office, CORE has followed the same script
as its predecessor, doing nothing about mass
teacher layoffs except a court suit on
procedural issues. This spring, the Chicago
Teachers Union president endorsed an
Illinois law gutting teachers’ right
to strike. Such sellouts are not isolated
incidents but universal for reformist
opposition groups who have won office in
various unions. While leftists often play a
key role in organizing them, their program
of simple trade unionism is impossible in
this epoch of capitalist decay, when union
gains, and unions themselves, are being
systematically destroyed. It is necessary to
build a class-struggle opposition to take on
capitalism and the capitalist parties which
are waging a class war on public education,
now spearheded by Democrat Obama. Lessons of
Chicago CORE(30 July
2011)

Early in the morning
on September 24, agents of the Joint Terrorism
Task Force of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) barged into eight homes in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois,
breaking down doors in a coordinated raid
against leftist activists. More than a dozen
people were served subpoenas ordering them to
appear before a grand jury supposedly
investigating “material support to terrorism.”
Those
targeted include University of Minnesota and
University of Illinois staff members and
unionists who have been outspoken in
opposition to U.S. policies. They include
activists associated with Students for a
Democratic Society, the Colombia Action
Network and the Freedom Road Socialist
Organization (FRSO-Fightback) group. The labor
movement and all defenders of democratic
rights should respond with powerful
mobilizations to denounce this political
persecution, the latest in the “home front” of
the imperialist “war on terror.”Denounce
FBI Raids on Leftist Antiwar and
Solidarity Activists(28 September
2010)

Mobilize the Power of
the Working Class to Defeat the Militarized
Popular FrontBrazil: Reformists Tail After “Strike”
By Militarized Firemen in Rio de JaneiroIn
June, the firemen of the Brazilian state of
Rio de Janeiro launched what was advertised
as a “strike” for higher salaries. In fact
it was a mutiny by an armed force of state
repression seeking to tie its pay and raise
its military prestige to that of elite units
of the state police. Unlike in many
countries where firemen are part of the
civil administration, in Brazil they are
auxiliary military forces who play an
important role in repression, particularly
of the poor black population of the favelas
and morros
(hillside slum areas). In addition to
participating in military/police occupations
of the poor bairros, many firemen lead
milícias,
death squads which terorize these areas. The
main reformist tendencies to the left of the
governing Workers Party ostentatiously
supported the action of the militarized
firemen, while smaller centrist groups
called for “demilitarization” and
even disarming of the Corps. Both spread
democratic illusions in repressive forces
which are the backbone of the capitalist
state, and must be swept away by workers
revolution. The Liga
Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil and the
Comitê de Luta Classista trade-union
tendency fought against linking an ongoing
Rio teachers strike to the movement of the
firemen. Demanding the ouster of any and all
police –“the
armed fist of the bourgeoisie”– from the unions,
the LQB made history in 1996 by doing this
in the municipal workers union of the steel
city of Volta Redonda. Brazil:
Reformists Tail After “Strike” By
Militarized Firemen in Rio de
Janeiro (30 June
2011)

Canadian Federal ElectionNot Maple Leaf Social Democracy But
Fight for Workers Power!NDP:
Party of Imperialist War on Libya,
Capitalist Austerity “at Home”Forge
a Revolutionary Workers Party!
With Canadian fighter jets flying bombing
Libya, under the NATO operational command of
a Canadian general, Canada went to the polls
on May 2. With a slight increase in its
share of the vote and less than 40 percent
of the total, the Conservative Party gained
a majority in parliament. The Liberal Party
took a beating while the Bloc Québécois was
almost wiped out. The most right-wing
Canadian government in memory will push
through a program of capitalist austerity, a
beefed up military and a crackdown on
“crime”: more cuts, more jets and more
jails. While the Tories promise to go at it
with a vengeance, the media and the left
focused on the surge in the vote for the New
Democratic Party, the so-called “orange
wave.” Actually, the NDP are more akin to
“parlor pinks,” a collection of well-behaved
social democrats who are not about to make
waves in Ottawa. With a majority of its
parliamentary caucus from Quebec, the
double-talk on sovereignty from these
Canadian nationalists will be exposed. Most
of the opportunist “socialist” left
called to vote for the NDP, and the
Stalinist/ex-Stalinist reformists will join
them in buzzing around this
social-imperialist war party. Not
Maple Leaf Social Democracy But
Fight for Workers Power! (27 May
2011)

CUNY Board of Trustees
Backs Down After Denial
of Honorary Degree Provokes OutrageWitch Hunt Against Tony Kushner SpikedMcCarthyite
witch hunting in academia was
spotlighted this month when the
Board of Trustees of the City
University of New York overturned a
faculty recommendation to award an
honorary degree to renowned
playwright Tony Kushner. The motive
for this unprecedented action by the
CUNY Board was Kushner’s defense of
the Palestinian people oppressed by
Zionist Israel. This was the second
time in the space of a few months
that blacklisting by officials of
the City University of New York
caused an uproar. Class Struggle
Education Workers and the CUNY
Internationalist Clubs protested
this latest attack, saying that it
is the Board of Trustees itself that
is the real culprit and should be
abolished and replaced by
democratically elected
representatives of students,
teachers and workers. A review of
Kushner's richly rewarding play
highlights his discussion of Marxist
ideas, dialectics, alienation of
labor, the origins of the struggle
against the oppression of
homosexuals, sexuality, reform and
revolution, and much more. Witch Hunt Against Tony Kushner
Spiked(21 May
2011)

“War
on Drugs” = Capitalist War Against Workers and
the PoorMexico: Against
Militarization, Fight for Workers RevolutionForge a
Revolutionary Workers Party!
In early May, a March for Peace with Justice
and Dignity arrived in Mexico City demanding
an end to the violence which during the
first for years of Felipe Calderón’s
presidency has claimed the lives of more
than 40,000 people. In recent months,
clandestine mass graves have been discovered
holding hundreds of dead, many of them
Central American immigrants. Although
diverse sectors are participating int he
march, including unions and leftists, they
all call on the state to put an end to the
violence. Yet the source of the violence is
precisely the capitalist state, and in order
to combat it we must wage a class war
against all wings of the bourgeoisie.
Revolutionary communists call for the
elimination of all laws against drugs, for
full citizenship rights for all immigrants,
for the expulsion of imperialist agents and,
in times of sharp class struggle, for the
formation of workers self-defense groups.
Ultimately, the only way to put an end to
the violence perpetrated by the ruling class
and its state is through socialist
revolution extending into the imperialist
heartland.Mexico:
Against Militarization, Fight for Workers
Revolution(7 May
2011)

Qaddafi and
the Imperialists: On and OffBack in the early 1970s, shortly after
he took power, kicked the U.S. out of its
gigantic air base and set up a National Oil
Corporation, Muammar Qaddafi was hailed by much
of the left as an “anti-imperialist.” Despite
his rhetoric, from the outset the Libyan leader
was prepared to cut a deal with U.S. imperialism
– and did, whenever it would let him. The U.S. spy agencies early on sized up
Qaddafi as a fanatical anti-communist, as he
helped thwart a coup by left-wing officers in
Sudan. In the 1980s the Reagan administration,
with its close ties to the oil companies,
repeatedly tried to assassinate the Libyan
leader, killing hundreds of Libyans in the
process. But from the mid-1990s on, Qaddafi
sought to ally with Washington in fighting
Islamic fundamentalism. He also invited in
imperialist corporations, followed economic
policies advocated by the International Monetary
Fund and staunched the flow of African
immigrants to West Europe. Today both the Libyan
regime in Tripoli and the opposition in Benghazi
are seeking the blessing of Washington.
Trotskyists oppose both politically while
defending Libya and seeking to defeat the
imperialist onslaught.Qaddafi
and the Imperialists: On and Off(April 2011)

From Messengers for
Qaddafi to Cat’s Paws for Imperialist
InterventionLibya
and the Opportunist LeftOver the decades authentic Trotskyists
have defended Libya against imperialist attack
while giving no political support to Muammar
al-Qaddafi. For opportunist leftists in the
early years, however, it was enough that Qaddafi
taunted Washington. They portrayed the Libyan
leader as a paragon of the “Arab Revolution.” If
some of Qaddafi's erstwhile leftist cheerleaders
are conflicted, it is not because they suddenly
discovered Marxist principles but because the
various constituencies they are tailing are in
conflict. Today various social democrats
champion the cause of the monarchist, Islamist,
ex-Qaddafi and pro-imperialist Libyan rebels in
the name of a “democratic revolution.” Their
claim that only a few leaders at the top are
begging for the imperialists to bomb Qaddafi to
oblivion is a self-serving myth. Their paper
opposition to Western military intervention is
an attempt to cover the fact that these
reformists shamefully paved the way for the
imperialist attack. Some
go even further and support, or refuse to
oppose, imperialist intervention. Even
“discussing” with such open social-imperialists
is an abomination: it is not only necessary to
fight against imperialist intervention tooth and
nail, it is an obligation to defend a
semi-colonial country under attack, whatever the
pretext or its internal regime, and to seek the
defeat of the imperialist attackers, no matter
how “democratic” or “humanitarian” they claim
their mission to be. Libya
and the Opportunist Left(April 2011)

Defend Libya Against Imperialist
Attack!Defeat U.S./U.N./NATO Assault!Defeat
the Monarchist/Islamist Opposition, Cat’s Paw
for the U.S.!
For Workers Revolution Against Qaddafi Police
State!The
United Nations Security Council has voted to
launch military action against Libya in the
guise of “protecting civilians.” After weeks of
the Western media churning out war propaganda
and liberals clamoring for “humanitarian”
intervention, the U.N. issued a declaration of
imperialist war. The alleged “humanitarian”
concerns are the same kind of smokescreen used
to justify the U.S./NATO attack on Yugoslavia in
1995 and 1999, as well as the 2003 U.S. invasion
of Iraq, supposedly (among other pretexts) to
defend the Kurds and Shiites. The “no fly zone”
and air strikes to bomb Libyan forces authorized
by the Security Council resolution represent a
major shift from what was a civil war between
the brutal bourgeois Qaddafi regime in Tripoli
and a monarchist/Islamist/pro-imperialist
opposition in Benghazi. Now, in the face of the
U.N. action and giving no political support to
Qaddafi, revolutionaries and all opponents of
imperialism are duty-bound to defend Libya while
calling for the defeat of the U.S./U.N./NATO
attackers. Defend
Libya
Against Imperialist Attack! Defeat
U.S./U.N./NATO Assault!(18 March 2011)

Defeat the Pro-Imperialist,
Monarchist and Islamist Opposition! For Workers
Revolution Against the Qaddafi Police
State!Libyan ShowdownThe imperialist
media have sought to portray events in Libya as
one more spontaneous mass popular uprising just
like others in the Middle East. But in fact the
February 17 Libyan “Day of Rage” was announced
well in advance by the National Council for the
Libyan Opposition, which operates out of Britain
and the U.S. Protesters immediately began
flying the flag of the Libyan monarchy,
overthrown by Qaddafi in 1969, and one of main
groups of the opposition council is headed by
the would-be king. Another component is
the National Front for the Salvation of Libya,
whic has been an instrument of the American CIA
since it was founded in 1981. Also prominent in
the opposition coalition, particularly among the
fighters, are Islamists, whose leaders fought
the Soviets in Afghanistan. To top it off there
are defectors from the Qaddafi regime, the very
people responsible for his notorious police and
special forces. Communists must expose the
reactionary ruling-class forces behind this
operation and organize for a genuine revolution
to bring down the dictatorship of capital and to
throw off the yoke of imperialism. Libyan
Showdown(15 March 2011)

Worker
Mobilization Brought Down “Pharaoh,”
But U.S.-Backed Army Junta Grabs PowerEgypt:
Mubarak Gone, Workers to Power!End the Siege of Gaza –
Open the Border Now!
For a Socialist Federation of the Near East!On February
11, the Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak was
ousted after 30 years in power. After 18 days of
continuous protests by hundreds of thousands of
Egyptians, and two days after strikes swept
across the country, the hated dictator departed.
The tenacious resistance of demonstrators in
Liberation Square stymied the regime, but it was
workers action that was key in ousting the hated
despot. That was when Washington gave the green
light for the Egyptian generals to move. The slogan “The people
want the regime to fall,” borrowed from Tunisia,
became, “The people, at last, have brought down
the regime.” But although the despotic Raïs
(Leader) is gone, the army-based regime that has
lorded it over Egypt for more than half a
century remains. Talk
of “democracy” under the dictatorship of
capital, particularly in semi-colonial countries
like Egypt, is a lie. The ouster of “Pharaoh” Mubarak must lead to
workers revolution if autocratic rule is to be
swept away.Egypt:
Mubarak Gone, Workers to Power!(13 February
2011)

Mass Revolts Against U.S.-Backed Arab
DictatorsEgypt,
Tunisia: Turn
Popular Uprisingsinto
Workers Revolution!An aging dictator
toppled in Tunisia, another is tottering in
Egypt: North Africa and the Near East are in
turmoil, Washington is worried, Wall Street has
the jitters. The world’s eyes are glued on Cairo
as battles rage back and forth in the squares of
the Egyptian capital and on the bridges across
the Nile. With U.S. troops still occupying Iraq
and bogged down in a losing war in Afghanistan,
suddenly a new spectre is shaking the
imperialist world order: revolution
by the wage slaves held down by the modern
pharaohs. But even the fall of Arab satraps of
the U.S. empire will not bring democracy for the
downtrodden and oppressed masses until the
stranglehold of imperialism is broken. The key
is to forge a revolutionary leadership to
mobilize the working masses in the struggle to
bring down the dictatorship of capital. Egypt,
Tunisia: Turn Popular Uprisings into
Workers Revolution(4 February
2011)